Avalanche's Jared Bednar makes his NHL debut Saturday

Jared Bednar, with players during training camp last month, will be involved in his first NHL regular-season game, in any role, on Saturday. (Seth McConnell / The Denver Post)

DENVER — Saturday's Avalanche regular-season opener against Dallas at the Pepsi Center is something Jared Bednar has been working for since 2002. That's when ex-goalie Jason Fitzsimmons, a former South Carolina Stingrays teammate of Bednar's, called to ask him to make the two-block trip between their homes in Charleston.Fitzsimmons, who had just been named the Stingrays' head coach, asked Bednar — then a 30-year-old minor-league defenseman — to retire and become assistant coach for the franchise in what then was called the East Coast Hockey League.

Fourteen years after he had to be talked into going into coaching, Bednar on Saturday will be involved in his first NHL regular-season game, in any role. He progressed from ECHL assistant to ECHL head coach, stepping up to become an American Hockey League assistant and serve two stints as an AHL head coach — with a hiccup when his contract wasn't renewed after his second season as head coach of the Peoria Rivermen — before the Avalanche hired him to succeed Patrick Roy on Aug. 25.

"I'm not intimidated by it, nor am I nervous about it right now," Bednar said of his NHL coaching debut. "I know on opening night, it's now for real and there will be some nerves there — just like the players. I had them in the American Hockey League. I get nervous before games and get a little antsy before games, almost every game, and I think that's a good thing. I think that's the way you want to be as a competitor."

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This isn't something new for the Avalanche, who won the Stanley Cup in 2001 with Bob Hartley, who also never played or coached in the NHL before being promoted from the AHL to the Avalanche bench, as head coach. But it's a contrast, with the Avalanche going from having Roy, one of the best players in NHL history, running things, to a man who as a first-time visitor in most cases will get off the bus at each road arena this season and casually remain with the pack on the walk to the visiting dressing room.

At 44, after having coached the Stingrays and the Lake Erie Monsters of the AHL to championships, Bednar has been assertive in running Avalanche practices and overseeing the installation of his push-the-pace, aggressive system. While exhibition records often are fool's gold, the Avalanche did go 6-0 in the preseason and at least looked as though the lessons — taught on the ice and in video sessions — are being heeded.

"I think we're getting better every day," Bednar said. "It's a work in progress. To me, this process is a year-long deal to get better and better and faster and faster. It takes time, but I've liked what we're doing so far. You don't get through training camp or get into September and go, yeah, we're perfect. That's the team we want to be come playoff time. You have to get better at all the little details of your system through the course of the season."

His system isn't revolutionary or complicated, but it's constructed to avoid what plagued Roy's teams, especially the past two non-playoff seasons that followed the amazing 112-point season in 2013-14 that earned Roy the NHL's coach of the year award. That is, get the puck up ice quickly, trying to minimize defenseman-to-defenseman passes (or dawdling) and take advantage of the Avalanche's speed up front in a game that every year seems to get younger and faster. And avoid stretches when the puck seems to have been in the Colorado end for longer than it took Jake Schroeder to sing the national anthem.

"It's great for me," said the Avalanche's most noted speed demon, 21-year-old center Nathan MacKinnon. "I can just skate and not think so much. Be aggressive. I think the biggest thing is that if we're going to make mistakes, they're going to be aggressive mistakes. We've been very passive the last couple of seasons, I think, and that's on us as much as the coaching staff. But for us, aggressive mistakes is kind of like, 'I didn't think I heard him right.' I think he only said that once, but it kind of stuck with me. I really liked that term."

Defensemen Tyson Barrie and Erik Johnson are the Avalanche's top offensive threats on the blue line. Barrie also likes what he has heard — and seen.

"We still go D to D, it's just eliminating the useless, kind-of-slow-the-game-down D to D, back to D, look, back to D, that type of thing," Barrie said. "It's going to be D to D with a purpose, get it in the forwards' hands, and we're going to be jumping when we can. If our forwards are delaying, we'll be there to be the second wave.

"It's simple, it's quick, it's fast, it's easy to understand. We're going to play a style of game that's going to make teams adapt to us. I'm enjoying it so far and I think all the rest of the guys are too. We're really looking forward to getting it started and seeing what kind of damage we can do."

Said Johnson: "I think the biggest difference is we're moving as a unit of five, and I think everyone is supporting each other all over the ice. You always have support, whether it's in the D zone or the O zone. I just think structurally, we're just a little bit more sound."

Matt Duchene is coming off a career-best 30-goal season, and as a member of Canada's World Cup championship team, he was the final Avalanche veteran to join the team in the preseason.

"I'm getting more comfortable as I go," Duchene said Wednesday. "I've been here a week yesterday, so it's been a pretty quick learning curve. There's stuff I can still improve on systematically. I'm working to do that. But as a team we're starting to really get it and work it, and I think you can see from the result of our preseason, we're doing a good job with it.

"There are little things along the way, you have to make reads, it's a lot of skating, so you have to make sure you're moving your feet. It takes away time and space from the other team."

Beauchemin, 36, has played for five different NHL teams, but this is a new system for him, too.

"It's different," Beauchemin said. "It fits our team really good because of our speed up front, especially, and the forwards are helping us to bring the puck out of our zone pretty fast. We're trying to be a five-man unit, pretty close together, and move the puck really quick."

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